


The Ice Tsar

by WennyT



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Folklore, Gen, Hans Christian Andersen - Freeform, M/M, WINTER IS COMING and I am not sorry, all that angst to satisfy the one whom this is written for, and by that I really mean "bastardization of HCA's stories", yes I like to mutter in my tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 00:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WennyT/pseuds/WennyT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Today my nanny told me about the Ice Tsar,” lisps a little girl, as he crouches down so that he may see eye-to-eye with her, and hand to her with both hands her toy house. </i>
  <br/>
  <i>“Tell me about him,” requests Yunho, and she is more happy to do so, spinning a tale of a lonely youth with frost and snow at his command and ice in his cold heart, who steals travellers going through the mountains away in their sleep to serve as his companions, and who longs for naught but a mate to share his wintry realm.</i>
  <br/>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ice Tsar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sohii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sohii/gifts).



 

 

 

Yunho was seven when he lost his parents.

 

He does not remember much now, of the accident. His uncle and grandfather don't talk much about it, less so since he is now an adult, at seventeen.

 

Sometimes he dreams of it, of wind and ice and snow against his mouth, of warmth at his back and ice wreathing his hands and stinging his lips. Sometimes he dreams of his mother, of her shoving him towards land, back on treacherous ice as she sinks, dragged down by the currents.

 

He does not dream of his father. And he does not remember his dreams when he wakes.

 

He looks towards the Byrranga Mountains in the distance and there is a longing in his heart, a longing that whispers in the rustle of the leaves during spring and the hush of the snow during winter. But both his grandfather and uncle both reacted so strongly when he hinted, one day as they sat down to dinner, that he would love to hike up those majestic slopes, that he is loath to bring it up again.

 

Yunho does not make mention of his desire thereafter, and instead he tries to be content delivering toy houses made by Grandfather and Uncle to excited chattering children who call him the "toy man" and greet him with affectionate sticky hands. They crowd about him, gabbling about stories and folktales that he never had the pleasure of hearing, when he was in his childhood.

 

“Today my nanny told me about the Ice Tsar,” lisps a little girl, as he crouches down so that he may see eye-to-eye with her, and hand to her with both hands her toy house.

 

“Tell me about him,” requests Yunho, and she is more happy to do so, spinning a tale of a lonely youth with frost and snow at his command and ice in his cold heart, who steals travellers going through the mountains away in their sleep to serve as his companions, and who longs for naught but a mate to share his wintry realm.

 

“And my nanny says, if I don’t sleep before nine, he’ll come in with the winter winds and snatch me away from my bed!” Concludes she, wide-eyed and solemn, and her older brother jeers at her even as he hands Yunho a sack of silver coins as payment for the toy.

 

The children’s enthusiastic smiles serve as a temporary balm to his heart, a balm that fades whenever he is out of their houses and away from their company. And the mountains are there, breathtaking in their magnificence, and impossibly far away.

 

There are times when he wonders at his own fascination with the Byrrangas, for he cannot explain the yearning that seizes him, that consumes so utterly. But consumes it does, such that melancholy finds him, without fail, in the four months of the year when winter fades.

 

*

 

His want for the Mountains extends to winter, and he finds himself happiest whenever the cold comes, and with it, the frozen lakes and harsh blizzards.

 

But yet, there is something, someone else that he finds himself wanting more and more. A girl.

 

Her name is BoA, and she is the milliner's daughter. Someone who would have usually been too far from his reach, orphan pauper that he is, naught but the frontman for two elderly toy makers.

 

But they grew up together; running across the village green even when they were knee-high, back when BoA had her hair down and dressed like a boy. Yunho's earliest memory of her is this: him teaching her to skate across a frozen lake, smoothing tears away from her cheeks when she fell, away before they froze into little ice crystals.

 

Yunho wants her. He wants BoA with her long brown hair, vivid against the white-blue of winter; her up-tilted eyes, dark in the endless light of December nights. Her, dressed warmly in mink and lynx furs her father procures from travelling merchants, who bring with them tales of luxury and gold.

 

His want is strange, seasonal in its desire. In summer, or what little summer they have, the stark monochrome of winter diminishes slightly, to a palette of cautious greens and browns and yellows. Comforting colours that complement the dusk pink of BoA’s lips, and brings a flush to her cheeks; yet Yunho longs for winter, for the bite of frost to nip at her ears and nose and turn them a mesmerizing shade of pink.

 

He tells her so, one chilly winter night, when they are both two and twenty. An age where BoA should have been married and sitting about the hearth with more than a few babes at her knee. But single she remains, and that itself is hope to Yunho, and a sign that perhaps his suit is not unwelcome.

 

And BoA laughs, embarrassed and flattered in equal measure.

 

“I want to make you my wife,” Yunho says, large callused hands cupped about hers, which were in turn dwarfed and coddled by the white fox fur lining the edge of her sleeves.

 

“Truly?” She laughs, dark eyes glittering in the evening like the diopside his uncle’s richer clients offer, in return for a miniature house so intricate that it would rival even the mansions of the aristocracy, in far away St. Petersburg, in their opulence.

 

“Yes,” he utters, a thousand promises hidden in the sibilant.

 

A considering look is leveled at him, then she murmurs, lowly, hesitatingly, “show me, then. Show me that you wish to take me as your wife.”

 

“How?” Asks he, eager to go to the ends of the earth for her, to prove his sincerity, and says so he does.

 

“My papa says there is a rare type of hare in the Byrrangas.” Whispers BoA; “At the lakes whence the river Chetyrekh begins. Their fur are reputed to be the colour of the winter sun at noon. Bring five of them back for me, enough for the village tailor to make a winter capelet out of the fur. And I will marry you whilst wearing it at our wedding.”

 

“Aye, I will,” cries he. “And I will set out to-morrow, when the day breaks.”

 

*

 

Mindful of the possible protests his grandfather and uncle may make, Yunho leaves his home even before dawn arrives, leaving behind naught by a note to reassure them.

 

Heart pounding at the thought of what lies beyond the task BoA has set him – at last— and the idea of journeying to the Byrranga Mountains –at last at last _at last_ — Yunho sets off, walking stick firm in one hand, and a rucksack as well as a bow strapped to his back.  

 

Yunho quickly finds that it is not an easy trek to make. The weather stays dismally gloomy, and inclined to rain. Clouds hang low, so low that he fancies he can almost touch them if he will just reach out; like mourning veils draped upon the snow-covered mountaintops.

 

But despite the dreariness of his surroundings, despite the monotony of all the white and grey about him, Yunho feels more alive than he ever has, and he laughs, the sudden sound echoing in the stillness, even as his heart pounds with joy in his breast.

 

His walking stick proves to be an excellent aid. Yunho cannot count the number of times it has saved him from walking into treacherous ditches, wide enough to trap a man and hidden by the glittering snow.

 

Sometimes he thinks there is someone, or something, hovering at the edge of his vision, but it always turns out to be a curious fox, their identity given away by the turn of a bushy tail, or a family of lemmings, gnawing on the scant few trees that break through the stunning white of the landscape, beady eyes trained on him as he tramps past them.

 

He ventures deeper, higher into the mountains, and the trees fall away into slopes of endless white, interrupted occasionally by wide, gushing rivers that murmur monotonously. Their smaller counterparts have already frozen, halted in their meanderings until spring blooms once more next year, a pale blue-grey stagnant in between frost-laden banks.

 

It is the ninth day of Yunho’s journey, when he breaks his fast with black bread and clean snow melted by friction matches. He has just finished eating, shoving the bread clumsily enough into his mouth with half-frozen fingers when something flits at the edge of his vision again.

 

He looks up sharply, and there is a young man in white, rather near to him. Yunho has not even heard him approach.

 

The stranger is dressed oddly, in furs of white and grey, curling in spikes about his angular face and neck. Belying his clothing is the fact that his hands are bare, and so pale, that they almost blend into the scenery.

 

“Hello,” says Yunho. “Have you come to hunt for Arctic hares, too?”

 

“No,” the stranger replies, and Yunho sees that his eyes are an odd grey-black that were clear and deep but unfathomable, like staring into the depths of an iced-over lake. “Have you?”

 

“Yes,” Enthuses Yunho, and because his mind is on his love and all his thoughts were of BoA, he tells his tale of affection and adventure to the stranger, who listens attentively, with nary a word.

 

Concluding his story, Yunho looks over at the young man. “Have you a love?”

 

“No,” answers he, smiling, although there is little mirth to be found on his face. “I have not. You are fortunate.”

 

“Aye,” Yunho agrees, shouldering his rucksack once more. “That I am, to have capture the interest of one like she.”

 

“This is dangerous weather to hunt the hares,” said the stranger. “Are you not afraid of incurring the wrath of the Ice Tsar?”

 

“Do not tell me you believe in the tales spun by exasperated parents in attempts to rein their children in!” Cries Yunho laughingly. “The Ice Tsar is naught but a figure from folklore, fictitious and intangible!”

 

Darkness comes once more, then, as Yunho’s utterance hangs in the air, clouds shrouding the weak glow of the sun. The stranger looks up, even as fat flakes of snow fall about them and upon them.

 

“You are a brave man,” said the stranger, lowering his head down to smile at Yunho. His teeth, Yunho sees, are very white. “And for that, I will aid you to find your hares.”

 

“Ah,” says Yunho, suspicion striking him belatedly. “But how am I to know if you will pretend to aid me, then lead me to some hidden crevasse and fall to my death?”

 

“I will not,” replies the stranger, and the smile upon his lips grows. “But I will walk ahead to assuage you of your fears.”

 

And walk ahead he does. In following him, it takes Yunho but two days to spot a colony of Arctic hares scampering about in a snow-covered valley, gentle dip between mountains.

 

“There!” Cries Yunho, reaching for his bow. “I see them!”

 

“This is where I leave you,” says the stranger, already backing away. “Till we meet again.”

 

“Wait!” Snow begins to fall once more, in swirling flurries and Yunho startles, reaching towards just enough to capture the stranger’s fingers. They are cold, and smooth, like carved ice instead of human fingers. “You never told me your name!”

 

A pause, wherein even the shush-shush-shush of the drifting snow seems to cease; then a murmur comes through: “You may call me Changmin.”

 

The wind whistles piercingly and the stranger steps away, gone the next moment. Yunho traces back on the path they took, but there is no sight of anyone, but yet a strange, melodious laugh can be heard, coming from everywhere and nowhere.

 

“Changmin!” Cries he, as the blizzard ends as suddenly as it had begun, and Yunho’s voice echoes back to him about the valley. No one answers him, even though he calls out until his voice is hoarse, except for the nearly forgotten hares, eyeing him warily atop a snow bank.

 

It comes to him in a flash of insight, as a statement made by the stranger, by Changmin, flits across his mind.

 

“He must have been a spectre, or even a servant of the Ice Tsar,” whispers he wonderingly. The valley does not have an answer for him.

 

Bidding himself to stop considering impossible things and mythical creatures, for it would do him no good to puzzle about imponderables, Yunho eyes the hares again, and reaches for his bow.

 

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> One of many in an ongoing endeavour to make sohii feel guilty and write me more fics in return. To be honest, I cannot quite tell if it is working.
> 
> This is my pathetic attempt to write in a more old-fashioned manner a là H. C. Andersen. I have stolen the geography and geology of Northern Russia (notably, Siberia) and shaped it according to my desires. 
> 
> As always, feedback (especially comments! Constructive criticism!) is extremely appreciated.


End file.
